


Early Morning Siren

by ckret2



Series: Writing Warmups (daily page-long drabbles) [21]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, First Meetings, Gen, Humor, Pranks and Practical Jokes, or first real interaction of any worth at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 06:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20870060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: The early morning silence is broken by a very brief police siren.Shock and Ore are sure they don't know anything about that, and most certainly are not involved or responsible.





	Early Morning Siren

**Author's Note:**

> Written to the prompt: "Are you still taking prompts? Because I've got a dumb one. Prowl discovers he's got some malware virus in his system and he's 100% sure who gave it to him. (I will be 0% offended if you don't want this one)"

The deep space silence just before the Autobot space station's morning shift was shattered by half a second of a distant, shrill emergency siren. 

Then silence. 

A moment later, it went again for three seconds. 

And silence. 

About five minutes later, it went off again for a sustained fifteen seconds; and for the next couple of minutes there were a smattering of one- or two-second bursts before it finally stopped for good. No emergency had been declared, and anyway it sounded like a personal siren rather than one of the station's alarms; so it was chalked up to a former firefighter or ambulance having a late morning nightmare, and in an hour it was forgotten. 

### 

Shock and Ore were among the many soldiers having their morning rations in the mess hall, and if they seemed more chipper than usual, it wasn't enough for anyone else to make note of it. They were halfway through their cubes when Prowl stormed in, radiating the sort of murderous fury usually only seen when Megatron was hustling straight from another in-faction usurpation attempt to the battlefield. Shock and Ore's faces lit up with terror and glee, then quickly returned to cool neutrality. 

And they maintained that perfect neutrality as Prowl, face contorted in rage, marched straight up to their table. 

"Something wrong, officer?" Shock asked innocently. 

Scowling, Prowl opened his mouth. 

The entire mess hall turned to stare as a police siren wailed from Prowl's mouth. Something in his throat flashed red and blue. 

Prowl closed his mouth. He crossed his arms. 

In the dead silence of the mess hall, a couple of desperate, wheezy giggles escaped. Shock and Ore's faces, however, were the perfect mix of thunderstruck and concerned. Ore pointed at his neck. "I think... I think you've got something in your..." 

"You probably ought to get that checked out, sir." 

Prowl pointed two fingers at his own optics, pointed them at the Duobots, spun sharply, and stomped out of the mess hall. 

They held it together until his footsteps had faded from hearing. Then they howled with laughter. 

### 

A week later, sitting in front of the desk of the Autobot Army's top strategist and sometimes-Second-In-Command, they weren't laughing. 

They squirmed in their seats as he glowered at them over his laced hands. 

"I know it was you," he said. "I don't know how. It's no exaggeration to say that my quarters, my body, and my processor have the most sophisticated defenses in the Autobot Army. My antivirus suite is custom tailored and unparalleled, _and _I am personally capable of recognizing and isolating foreign files in my processor. But nothing in my systems reveals your means of tampering. No security footage shows you entering my quarters. No forensic examinations turned up so much as a foreign paint chip in my room. No one in this space station and none of your known associates in other bases have confessed to the slightest knowledge of this scheme—if you had accomplices, they're either as yet unknown or _incredibly _resistant to interrogation. I do not have the _least _clue how you did it." 

Ore reset his vocalized nervously. "So—sir—what you're saying is, you _don't _have any evidence that we did it?" 

"No," Prowl said sharply. "I do not. I know you did it, but I have no physical proof." 

Shock sat up slightly. "You didn't call us in here to punish us for a crime you've got no evidence we've committed, did you, sir?" He and Ore had heard wildly conflicting rumors about Prowl's relationship with the law and in what ways he thought it could be acceptably bent. 

"Of course not." Prowl dropped his laced hands to his desktop so he could lean forward. They'd had no idea Prowl could wear such a hard smile. "I called you in here to inform you that if you can do it again, then I've got two positions for you in the Diplomatic Corps." 

### 

A week later, _someone _glued Prowl's hands together.

**Author's Note:**

> Also available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/188094778832/early-morning-siren-23). Comments/reblogs there are appreciated (as are comments here)!


End file.
